“扶上马、送一程”:家族企业代际传承中的战略变革与父爱主义

“ More than Promotion ”: An Empirical Study of Intergenerational Succession and Strategic Change from the Perspective of Paternalism

"扶上马、送一程"的谚语寓意着,权威缺乏、经验不足的继任者不仅需要前任的大力提携助其上位,还需一路保驾护航以平稳渡过交接班动荡期。在家族企业代际传承父子共治过程中,这一类似的帮扶现象是较为常见的。遗憾的是,现有理论研究对这一现象及其所蕴含的战略动机缺乏应有的重视,因此本文试图弥补这一不足。基于父爱主义逻辑,本文区分开父辈帮扶之下家族企业传承的不同阶段,分析在不同时期企业的战略变革水平。利用2006～2015年中国上市家族企业样本,实证研究发现:在父辈主导之下,二代接班准备阶段会发生显著的战略变革,但二代接班上位后的战略变革则明显放缓;同时,两代亲缘关系越近,接班准备阶段的战略变革越显著,而两代认知差异则削弱了二代上位后战略变革水平的下降效应。进一步研究发现,父辈完全退出企业,二代自治对战略变革的影响并不存在明显差异。总体而言,这些研究结论表明,尽管接班准备阶段尚未掌权的二代难以主导企业的战略决策,但父辈会采取积极的战略变革措施为二代接班上位搭桥铺路,且这一具有"父爱主义"的战略变革也是有代价的,表现为一定程度的企业绩效折损。

The Chinese proverb"help on the horse and escort a way"means that successors not only need their predecessors'help to get promotion,but also to escort them all the way to overcome the obstacles during the turbulence.This phenomenon is very common during the process of father-son co-governance in family business,but its strategic motive is not clear yet.Based on the logic of paternalism,this paper studies the strategic changes in different stages of succession.Using the sample of Chinese listed family firms from 2006～2015,this paper found that there will be a significant strategic change before the second generation to take over the family firm,but this effect will fade after the second generation to become a real leader.In addition,the closer the kinship of two generations,the more remarkable strategic change in the preparation stage.And the cognitive differences between two generations was negatively associated with the strategic change after the transfer.Further study found that if the father completely resigns from the firm,the second generation's taking office has no significant effect on strategic change.Overall,although the second generation does not dominate the strategic decision-making of the family firm,the fathers will take strategic changes to pave the way for the second generation's succession.But the paternalism underlying strategic changes will be at the price of decrease in firm performance in the short-term.